Binance Let Suspicious Accounts Move $144 Million After US Settlement

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🚨 Binance allegedly let $144 million flow through suspicious accounts post settlement

• 🏛️ Aave DAO vote sparks backlash over rushed process

• 🧑‍💻 Hyperliquid says fired employee is behind massive HYPE shorts

• 🔒 Justin Sun’s locked WLFI tokens drop $60 million in value

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Binance Allowed Suspicious Accounts to Move $144 Million After 2023 U.S. Settlement: Report

Crypto exchange Binance allegedly allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto to move through “suspicious” accounts even after its $4.3 billion U.S. criminal settlement and plea deal in November 2023.

A Financial Times investigation, based on leaked internal Binance data covering 13 high‑risk user accounts, found about $1.7 billion in total transactions between 2021 and 2025 through these accounts.

One specific example involves a resident of a Venezuelan slum who reportedly processed about $93 million, with some flows linked by U.S. authorities to networks moving money for Iran and Hezbollah.

Another user reportedly changed attached bank details 647 times in 14 months, using 496 different bank accounts to move funds into institutions across the Americas.

The report notes that at least $144 million worth of funds moved through accounts of this nature after Binance’s plea deal with U.S. authorities, where the exchange committed to “real‑time transaction monitoring” and enhanced due diligence reviews.

Pre-holiday episodes today! Double header featuring DEX in the City plus Unchained On Air 📺️

At 12pm ET: Tune in for hot takes and news with our favorite crypto lawyers: DEX in the City hosts Jessi Brooks of Ribbit Capital, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos of StarkWare, and Vy Le of Veda.

Then, at 1pm ET, Laura sits down with Pablo Sabbatella, Member of SEAL (Security Alliance) and Founder of Opsek, and Isaac Patka, Wargames Initiative Lead at SEAL, and Founder of Shield3, for a conversation on crypto security.

📺️ Where you can watch it: YouTube, X, PumpFun, or Twitch

Aave’s Rushed Governance Vote Draws Backlash

Decentralized lending protocol Aave's recent governance vote on transferring control of brand assets like domains and social media to the DAO has drawn sharp criticism for being rushed.

Key community figures argue the process bypassed norms and ignored ongoing discussions, while Aave founder Stani Kulechov has defended it publicly as meeting requirements amid community eagerness.

The proposal, authored under the name of Aave Labs CTO Ernesto Boado, advanced to Snapshot voting after just five days of forum debate, despite over 200 comments and unresolved questions.

“This is not, in ethos, my proposal. Aave Labs has (for whatever reason) unilaterally submitted my proposal to vote in a rush, with my name on it, and without notifying me at all. If asked, I would not have approved it,” said Boado on X.

Marc Zeller, who leads the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), said the situation was turning into a “hostile takeover attempt” by Aave Labs.

Hyperliquid Says Ex-Employee Is Behind Massive HYPE Shorts

The Hyperliquid team claims that the wallet aggressively shorting and selling HYPE is controlled by a former employee who was fired in early 2024.

In a Discord post on Monday, pseudonymous co-founder Iliensinc noted that all Hyperliquid employees and contractors are banned from HYPE token derivatives trading and the team has a zero tolerance policy for insider trading.

“To address recent community inquiries regarding the address 0x7ae4c15…1028: this address belongs to an ex-employee who was terminated in Q1 2024,” said Iliensinc.

“This individual is no longer associated with Hyperliquid Labs, and their actions do not reflect our team’s standards or values.”

The account in question has sold over 70,000 HYPE tokens and still holds roughly 98,200 HYPE, plus a small HYPE short that is currently deeply underwater.

Justin Sun’s Locked WLFI Tokens Lose $60 Million in Value: Bubblemaps

Justin Sun’s locked World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens have fallen by about $60 million in paper value since September, while his wallets remain blacklisted by the project, according to onchain analytics from Bubblemaps.

In early September, World Liberty Financial blacklisted 272 wallets after flagging security and misconduct concerns, including one address linked by analysts to Sun.

The blacklist prevents Sun from moving his WLFI, leaving his position effectively frozen despite him denying any misappropriation and calling the freeze unreasonable.

Sun invested a total of $75 million in WLFI tokens through TRON DAO, starting with an initial $30 million purchase in late 2024. The value of his holdings peaked at over $700 million shortly after launch.

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• 🎯 Coinbase agreed to buy The Clearing Company, a small but fast-growing prediction markets startup, to accelerate its push into trading on real-world outcomes like elections and economic data, with most of the startup’s team set to join Coinbase after the deal closes.

• ⚖️ Coinbase sued gaming regulators in Connecticut, Michigan, and Illinois to block efforts to classify its new prediction markets—run with Kalshi—as illegal gambling, arguing the products fall under federal commodities law rather than state betting rules.

• 📊 BitMine boosted its ether stockpile by about $300 million to surpass 4 million ETH—roughly 3.4% of total supply—continuing aggressive accumulation despite recent price drops that left it sitting on large paper losses.

• ⏸️ Strategy paused its aggressive bitcoin buying streak near Christmas and instead added $748 million to a newly created cash reserve for dividends, while still holding a record 671,268 BTC as it balances liquidity with long-term accumulation.

• 🏛️ White House crypto adviser David Sacks said the confirmation of Michael Selig to lead the CFTC, alongside SEC Chair Paul Atkins, put the U.S. on track for clearer crypto rules as Congress prepared a market-structure bill shifting more oversight toward the CFTC.

• 🏦 JPMorgan is weighing whether to offer crypto trading to large clients, quietly reviewing options like direct buying and selling and derivatives as part of its institutional markets business, though no final decision has been made.

• 🧾 ETHZilla sold roughly $74.5 million worth of ether to pay off senior secured convertible debt, shut down its net-asset-value dashboard, and signaled a strategic shift toward generating revenue from tokenizing real-world assets while still reporting treasury data.

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